Tales of Slow Brave Athena

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May 30, 2005

Naked

There has been much demolition today.

The day at a glance: Get up and go to favorite (though always too full) breakfast joint. Eat breakfast, then grimace that it is too early to run power tools. Do demolition with loppers and pruners, quietly.

At 11:20, hear someone firing up their lawnmower. Run outside with weedwhacker to mow down clematis, nightshade and blackberries that have taken up residence next to the driveway. Then, pull all of the clematis out of the lilacs.

Run in and grab the hedge trimmer. It will not start. It makes a groaning noise. Try a number of different methods to try to lull the hedge trimmer into operation again. It will have none of it.

Sweetie takes it back to the store. I continue handtrimming.

The neighbors all come by to marvel at the growing hill of clematis, shrub roses, blackberries, volunteer trees, corkscrew willow, and diseased rosebush clippings in the middle of the driveway. It's more like a collection of rolling hills.

I think about Tim. What happened? How can two people from my old circle of friends be dead? And what does this say about me? I panic a bit, and wonder if the guy I knew from college, who got me into cab driving, I wonder if he's still alive (he is, he of course has a web site). I wonder if this is some how related to class—I, after all, was one of those annoying college kids. I didn't need to be cab-driving. But I did need to earn money. And, I was entirely unconvinced that I could do anything other than service work. For the next 15 years, I was solidly blue collar, with brief brief forays into white collar work that never lasted more than 6 months, and left me feeling like a tourist, not that I had any right to be there.

Sweetie returns with a new hedge trimmer. I finish trimming the shrub roses. We load up the truck with lawn debris, and to both of our surprises, there is at least another load waiting in the driveway once the truck is full.

Our driveway looks naked. The three lilacs look sparse and sad once all the clematis and blackberries are cleared. The shrub roses are mere shadows of themselves. Two days ago, the sides and end of the driveway were lush, thick, verdant. The shrub roses were easily 7 feet tall, and six feet square. I don't like how bare it is. I don't like it at all.

However, few things are as satisfying as a trip to the dump. There is something so freeing about flinging things off the truck into a giant mountain as hard and as high as you possibly can.

We talk about stopping for a beer on the way home. I mention a place that the Portland Marathon passes, where Tanya Harding's goon squad had dumped their evidence, which Sweetie declares too much of a dive. We drive by on the way to the dump, and the place is closed and empty. We drive by on the way back, and the owner's car is there (Sweetie drives by this place almost daily) and we see him inside. He's painting. And he appears to be wearing a white apron. And underwear. That's it.

The rest of the evening—as we eat sandwiches, as we browse CDs, as we are driving home—sweetie asks me, what was he painting? Well?

Posted at May 30, 2005

Comments

Posted by: Nancy Toby at May 30, 2005 6:04 PM